The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-19
HOMES OF THE RICH.
Some New York Houses and Their Cor
gecus Halls.
copyrighted 1851


GCopyiqhted 1885;
NEW YORK, Dec 1.-THE entrance hall
is the biggest, the most imposing, the cost
hest and by long odds the handsomest apart
ment in a modern New York house of the
! first rank
New Workers of wealth and taste have
| entirely abandoned the straight hall or tine
narrow block house, where the stairs go
| straight up and the narrow passage 10 Dack
| parlor and basement stairs goes stralghG
! back Instead they have made the hell the
| central feature of the establishment 10
which, if necessary. everything else Is
| subordinated The new type OF hall Is
elaborate in its architectural features,
richly antique in its furnishings, and, II the
| mistress Of The establishment has any taste
whatever for large decorative effects, IL Is
upon the hall that she lavishes them. Inc
| nall indeed, is so much OF q hobpy IhaI
people build new houses in order to have
| halls.
There is no woman in New York who has
had better chance to demonstrate what
she can do with hall than Mrs. Whltelaw
Reid. The house that Henry Wizard pullU
before his failure and over which she now
presides has hall big enough almost 10
build again inside of. 1t runs north ana
south through the establishment, is not less
marble-marble walls, marble mosaic
ceilings, marble tesselated floor, baronlal IN
its size and its cold magniticence.
Mrs. Reid, who is D. o. Mills daughter,
and who has her own ideas of houses and
house furniture, has shown admirable Judg-
ment in her hall plenishing. She has pre-
served the large spirit of the archlts cture,
and vet has made the big place as warm
looking and as homelike as is possible In
Ii,c Ixyith a M ac home a
The immense open fireplace, almost as big
as the side OF an ordinary room, is OF
wrought iron, with wrought iron
CRATE, fireback and openwork from
trellising behind and above, going
back in style to the days before there were
mantels. There is always big lire glowing
red against the blackness, and heavy
carved oaken settle drawn up over against
it and carrying out the same idea OF the
srallying point of the family retainers.
Mrs. Reid takes to fur where other women
run to Turkish rugs, and there are bears
pelts, black and brown and white, long
haired and rough, lying about on the floor
and giving the appropriate Suggestion OF
comfort and covering. Big high doorways
open into big high drawing rooms; and
these are guarded by tapestried hangings,
but the general effect is not frittered away
by any mere prettiness or pettineSS OF deco
ration.
| suppose that Mrs William c. Whitney's
beautiful home, on the corner OF Fltty-
seventh street, has as pretty hall as any IN
New York, though the house was built
several years ago when departures from the
older cOnventionalitieS in building were lar
less common than now, and though It's cost
was much leSs than that of the Willard man.
sion.
The hall which Mrs Whitney has furnished
into iol,x mt share the
$500, 600 expended on the general renovation
of the house last year, is rather broad than
deep. 1t has an irregular outline and at the
back rises by easy gralationS broad stair
case with several landings, of beautiful
carved wood finish, the finest thing of its
sort in the city, / believe. Mrs. Whltney's
hobby is tapestry and next it the subdued
blendings of Oriental carpets. She has
tapestry hangings on the wall below the
staircase, behind it, beside it and in the
doorways leading to the drawing room.
There are stalne1 glass effects in the hall, a
costly clock, many pictures, and 1t is a coy,
homelike place, in spite of its size and rlch-
ness of furnishings.
Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, on the opposite
corner. has treated her hall in somewhat
more conventional manner. 1t is bigger than
the Whitney hall, but not SO sumptuously
furnished as that of the w. K. Vanderbilt
house further down the avenue, which has
| been described in an English art journal as
| the finest in America. There is vase of
Russian malachite set in gold in the Wander
bilt hall which is worth two or three good
sized fortunes. In size, however, any
thing in the Vanderbilt houses is dwarfed
by the hall Of the big new Tiffany house,
whose entrance is an enormous arch OF huge
stones guarded by heavy iron gate. 1t looks
| as if it ought to have a moat and an iron
drawbridge to make the thing complete,
and perhaps it would If the building laws
permitted. Into that yawning archway
your carriage disappears. The front steps
are inside, so to speak, and the hall, when
you have mounted them, is vast and
cavernous place with heavy carvings and
elaborate metal work. 1t dwarfs all
attempts to make it look Hvable, and is ex-
tremely magnificent but not in the least
like home.
Mrs. j. Coleman Drayton has the reputa
ton of wearing the best gowns in the city.
She has devoted herself to her hall with
equal zeal. 1t is one of the most successful
| halls in New York The Drayton house is a
modernized block house, one of the most
noticeable of the newer block houses on the
avenue 1t is not above thirty or thirty-five
feet wide, but the hall, without robbing the
drawing rooms of their just proportions, is
a pretty apartment, prettlly furnished, with
the same regard to harmony of materials
and colors which has established Mrs Dray-
tons reputation for good taste.
So much attention is being paid to hall
architecture. and New York women have
come to lay so much stress on hall decora-
ton that the mistresses of mansions with
the old fashioned straight halls are trying
to give them more of a roomy appearance,
or, at least to diguise the narrow passage
and the non-esthetic front staircase by rich
valances hung across the foot of the stair
way or by portleres. This is simple device
and pretty one Mrs. Cyrus w. Field has
used it to advantage in the big Field house,
in Gramercy park. Another easily made
reformation is to throw broad landing into
the stair near the bottom and approach it
by one or two steps from the side.
The house of Mrs. Marshall o. Roberts,
the fascinating SS,000,000 widow, and the
Belmont house, which stand ON adjacent
corners of Fifth avenue, disdains such devices.
These, with the city house which Mrs.
George Gould enjoys more than Mrs. Jay
Gould ever did, are relics of the days before
land was divided into such narrow lots
Their halls are wide, spacious, with broad,
straight stairways and with modern oak
furnishing, but strictly OF the old fashioned
order, without features" and not intended
tor family gathering places.
Some of the newer halls are chimney
l., yNgt /,